


Let's Do the Time Warp Again

by SailorSol



Series: Unfinished Tales [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Avengers Tower, Gen, Snark, Swearing, Team, Teenage Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark-centric, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, unfinished fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 12:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3290417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Tony gets turned into a teenager.</p><p>[This is an incomplete fic that I do not plan on finishing ever.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Do the Time Warp Again

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to start posting unfinished fics that I don't plan on finishing, because while they aren't going anywhere, I think what has been written for some of them is amusing and worth sharing.
> 
> This one stemmed from the various Avengers kid-fics out there and my desire to see a teenaged Tony ending up in Avengers tower and being a little too savvy for everyone's comfort.

_Well, fuck_ , was Tony’s first thought when he opened his eyes to a room that was most definitely not his 1920s era brownstone in Boston. The first clue was the mattress that was bigger than his entire bedroom; the second clue was the wall to his left, which looked like it was made of darkly tinted glass. He climbed out of bed—and had to clutch at the waistband of the too-large sweatpants—before moving to the glass.

He most certainly did _not_ swear when the glass turned clear, offering him a panoramic view of downtown Manhattan. Except something was wrong with the skyline, and he couldn’t quite pinpoint _what_ , not while he was rapping his knuckles of the hand not holding onto what little dignity he had against the window.

He’d definitely gone to bed in Boston. Or at least, he had passed out somewhere between the kitchen and the bedroom, he was pretty sure. Last night was hazy, and he had the headache to support the hypothesis that he had been, once again, falling down drunk.

After several more minutes of inspection—and realizing that the Twin Towers were missing, with some new shiny building in their place, so maybe this wasn’t _actually_ Manhattan after all?—he turned back to face the room.

It looked like something out of an interior design catalogue, done up in silver and gray and cream, nothing at all like his bedroom in Boston that had schematics pinned to all of the walls (was that an _actual painting_ above the bed?) and dirty clothes tossed in one corner and smelled of cheap beer and stale pizza. This room didn’t smell like anything, and that was kind of odd, Tony didn’t think rooms could smell of _nothing_ , but apparently this one could.

There were two doors, one ajar and one closed. The one that was ajar led to a bathroom. There was a tub the size of a small swimming pool, with Jacuzzi jets set into the sides. The shower looked like it could hold the entire MIT rowing team, with room to spare. There were two sinks set in a marble countertop; one sink had girl-stuff scattered around it, like makeup and hair brushes and other things Tony had no name for. The other sink had a straight razor laid out neatly, and a tub of hair cream, and a simple black comb.

He blinked at his reflection in the mirror. His hair was mussed, and it looked like he hadn’t slept in days, which if he remembered correctly, he probably hadn’t. The tank top he was wearing was too large, hanging from bony shoulders to expose pale winter skin.

“Don’t you just look like a million dollars,” he told his reflection, tossing it a one-fingered salute before heading back into the bedroom. Two wardrobes yielded him a row of skirt suits and a row of ratty jeans and band t-shirts. The jeans wouldn’t fit any better than the sweats, he figured, but the sweats at least had a drawstring that he could pull tight. He grabbed a Metallica t-shirt and tugged it on; it smelled faintly of aftershave and laundry detergent, but it was soft and more familiar than anything else in this strange place.

Wherever he was—and he didn’t think he’d been kidnapped, unless the people taking him had excellent taste—he wouldn’t find out more without venturing out of the room. He hesitated, just a moment, before trying the second door; he let out a soft exhale of relief when he realized it wasn’t locked, and he probably hadn’t been kidnapped after all.

***

Steve was flipping through the sports section of the morning paper when Jarvis made a throat-clearing sound. “Captain Rogers, I believe we have something of a problem.”

Jarvis sounded confused more than concerned, which made Steve frown. “What kind of problem?”

“Sir does… not appear to be himself, this morning,” Jarvis replied. He was using that inflection that meant he wasn’t entirely sure how to describe a situation, and was trying not to alarm the residents of the tower.

Steve sighed; Tony was rarely himself when Pepper was out of town on business. But Jarvis had to mean something more by his statement, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered bringing it to Steve’s attention. “Care to explain a little further?”

“Something happened overnight, there were no strange readings on my sensors, but…” Jarvis paused. “Sir is making his way to the kitchen now. Perhaps seeing for yourself will provide a better explanation.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, but turned towards the door that led from Tony’s quarters. He heard the shuffling footsteps before Tony came into view, but even Jarvis’s warning had not been enough to prepare Steve for this.

Tony looked like he couldn’t have been any more than fifteen years old. His hair was sticking out in more directions than normal, and he was practically swimming in his t-shirt and sweatpants. His eyes looked huge in his clean-shaven face—no, not clean-shaven, there weren’t even any hints of stubble.

Steve didn’t want to believe that this was actually Tony, but Jarvis wouldn’t joke about something like this, and if anyone knew Tony Stark, it was the AI. Tony’s eyes had narrowed suspiciously, looking around the kitchen like it was something he had never seen before. Steve knew that feeling too well.

“Uh, hi,” he offered, trying for friendly and non-threatening.

“Who are you, and how did I get here?” Tony demanded. His voice was somewhere on the edge of puberty, close to the familiar timber of adulthood but with the occasional break into adolescence. Before Steve could answer, Tony had practically stalked across the room to lean closer to Steve. “You look familiar.”

Did he remember him? It was hard to say. “Uh, my name’s Steve. I’m—” He looked towards the ceiling, Tony’s eyes following his, but Jarvis was oddly silent. He hoped Jarvis was waking the others. “I’m not sure how you got here, to be honest.”

That didn’t seem to help Tony relax at all. He backed away from Steve again, putting the kitchen island between them. “This isn’t Manhattan. The skyline’s wrong. And there’s no building of this height in this relative location to give that view.”

He sounded so sure of himself, like he was explaining to Steve how to use the microwave _again_ , that Steve almost laughed. He stopped himself, though; laughing would help no one. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t look familiar. How about you have a seat, and I’ll make some toast?”

Tony shifted around as Steve made his way towards the toaster, keeping the island between them. Steve turned his back to fetch the bread.

“Son of a bitch,” Tony swore; Tony swore a lot, but it somehow seemed a lot weirder coming from teenaged Tony. Steve spun to see what the problem was, and realized Tony was holding the newspaper Steve had been reading. “You’re joking, right? This is some kind of a joke? Or no,” Tony said, starting to pace three steps in one direction then three steps back in the other. “It’s that shit Dwight gave me, isn’t it? This is some kind of hallucination? Fuck, am I dying? Am I in the hospital right now, dying?”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but Tony was giving him a look like he hoped Steve had actual answers, and he shut his mouth a moment later, struggling to figure out what to say. “I don’t think you’re dying,” he settled on, speaking slowly and carefully. “And I don’t think this is… whatever it was Dwight gave you.” Steve was decidedly not thinking about who Dwight might be and where he was today.

“So I’m just supposed to believe that I’m thirty years in the future. Right. Sure, and you’re Captain—” Tony’s eyes went wider and he backpedaled, though Steve hadn’t approached him at all. “ _Fuck_.Fucking fuck! You _are_ , aren’t you? How the fucking hell? Dad looked but he never—” Tony went pale and crumpled the paper tightly in his hands. “No. This is some kind of sick joke, and let me tell you, I’ve heard funnier from the little old ladies on the T. Not that I’ve ever taken the T, but that just serves my point, doesn’t it? Because no, this cannot be happening, and you—”

Thankfully, Steve didn’t have to think of a reply as Sam came into the kitchen. “Morning, Cap. Jarvis said—” He caught sight of Tony, still looking pale and wild-eyed and stopped. “Er. Hello. I’m Sam.” And then Sam gave Steve a look that demanded an explanation.

“Sam, this is Tony Stark. He’s… uh…. Staying with us for a little while,” Steve offered.

“Ooooo-kay,” Sam said.

“Jarvis? Jarvis is here?” Tony asked. Steve and Sam exchanged a look and glanced towards the ceiling, but Jarvis remained silent. A moment later, though, Steve’s cell phone buzzed.

It was a text message from Jarvis. Apparently Tony’s family’s butler had been named Jarvis. Steve sighed. “Not… not exactly. Sam, can you go find Bruce, and see if Jane is available for a consultation? Tony’s already figured out he’s landed in the future somehow, so no worries dancing around that conversation.”

“Sure thing,” Sam said, backing out of the room without taking his eyes off of Tony.

“You seriously expect me to believe I’m in the future,” Tony said. “Which, fine, maybe time travel is possible if not entirely plausible, but that does not explain what the hell you’re doing in the 21st century, if you’re even who you’re claiming to be, because hello, World War II relic.”

At least that didn’t seem to have changed with Tony’s age. Steve sighed, and went for the coffee pot. He hesitated only a moment, then poured a second mug for Tony, putting it on the counter and pushing it slightly in his direction. Tony approached it warily, like a caged animal, before snatching it to hold close to his chest.

“Got any whiskey?” Tony asked, looking around the room like he would find a wet bar hidden here. Steve refused to tell Tony that the wet bar was in the common room.

“There’s cream and sugar,” Steve offered mildly, putting both in his own cup. Tony didn’t look impressed. “Look, I’m not really sure what’s going on any more than you are right now, but I do know what it feels like to wake up sometime in the future. I got dug out of the ice a few years ago, and a seventy year nap can certainly mess with a guy’s head.”

Tony’s look was shrewd and mistrustful, but Steve didn’t know what else to tell him. Tony was smart, he would form his own conclusions based on the evidence. And Steve knew firsthand that all the evidence pointed towards being in the 21st century. “Dad must have been thrilled,” Tony finally said.

It took all of Steve’s willpower not to flinch. He managed a nod, because words just wouldn’t form, though he covered it with a sip of his coffee. Bruce seriously needed to hurry up and figure this out before Tony put everything about the future together.

***

Captain Fucking America.

It was a hell of a lot easier to believe he was thirty years in the future than it was to believe that Captain America was alive and eating toast like it wasn’t some big ass deal that he even knew how to use a toaster oven, Jesus.

Still, this could all be an elaborate hoax or Tony could be passed out in a pool of his own vomit somewhere, having the strangest dream of his life. Or that shit Dwight had claimed was clean really hadn’t been, and Tony was sprawled on his bed in Boston, tripping out of his mind.

Because seriously, time travel and Captain America?

If he was passed out in his apartment, Rhodey would find him eventually. The guy had decided it was his sacred duty in life to drag Tony to class and the cafeteria and to that Red Sox game where they got thrashed by _Milwaukee_ , and hadn’t that been a fucking embarrassment to everyone involved.

Whatever. The point was, none of his professors would give a damn whether Tony showed up for classes, and it wasn’t like his parents ever called to check in on him, so if it wasn’t for Rhodey, it could have taken weeks before someone realized Tony was missing and decided to check on him. Hopefully Rhodey would show up soon and shake some sense (or at least consciousness) into Tony and he could forget this entire thing had ever happened.

Christ, he needed a beer. Captain Cryo was at the table, trying to act like he wasn’t staring at Tony; Tony was doing his best to ignore him as he headed for the fridge. There was beer, but nothing that Tony actually recognized. He snagged one of the bottles anyway. Someone had thoughtfully put a bottle opener magnet on the fridge, so Tony wouldn’t have to go searching through drawers.

He was halfway through the bottle in a single long pull before El Capitan realized what he was doing, and started making noises of disapproval or judgment or some other shit, which Tony ignored until his beer was gone and he had pulled out a second one.

“Aren’t you, er, a little young for that?” Rogers asked.

Tony raised an eyebrow at him, taking another deliberate sip from his second bottle. “I don’t think it’s any of your damn business, and didn’t you come from a time when pretty much anyone drank? Oh wait, no, never mind, you went to speak-easies and shit, didn’t you.”

Rogers frowned. “Prohibition was repealed in 1933. I was already fifteen by then.”

“And I’m technically forty-something, dear God, do I have gray hairs in the future? Tell me I don’t have gray hairs, I don’t think I could live that down,” Tony said, shuddering at the thought.

“Um,” Rogers said, but he was saved from whatever idiotic thing he was about to say by Sam returning with another guy who looked practically ancient, maybe even fifty years old, but definitely at least as old as Dad. He hoped like hell this wasn’t older-him.

“This is Bruce,” Rogers took the chance to introduce them. “He’s a doctor.”

Bruce had taken off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. He looked tired, but there was also a bemused smile on his face. “More of a physicist than a doctor, though I do have my MD as well as my Ph.D.”

Tony took another sip from his beer, wanting to see how this man would react to it. Bruce’s expression twisted into something resembling—what? It wasn’t disappointment, Tony was too damn familiar with that one, but sort of…regret? “So you think you can figure out why I woke up thirty years in the future, or whatever.”

“This is closer to what Jane does—Dr. Foster, that is—but she’s out of town right now and won’t be able to get here until tomorrow at the earliest. My specialty is more in gamma radiation,” Bruce said.

Tony raised an eyebrow; that at least sounded vaguely interesting. “Oh? What’re you working on right now?”

Sam snorted softly. “I’m going to fill the others in. Why don’t you join me, Steve?” It wasn’t phrased like a question, Tony noticed, and Rogers didn’t bother arguing, following Sam out of the kitchen.

“I’m working on this and that, right now. At the moment, I’ve got an experiment running on a very specific kind of solar radiation and how it interacts with different atmospheric conditions, and whether it can be manipulated to, well…” Bruce shuffled and pulled at the sleeves of his shirt in what was definitely a nervous tick. “The rest of it gets pretty complicated, and Jane is better suited to explain it. She’s the leading expert on Einstein-Rosen bridges.”

“Worm holes?” Tony asked. “Huh. How very sci-fi.”

Bruce looked like he was trying not to laugh. “How about we go down to my lab and I get some readings and we can see if we can figure this out before Jane gets here.” Tony shrugged and pushed away from the counter he’d been leaning against. “You’ll have to leave the beer, though,” Bruce added apologetically. “I have a strict no-liquids rule in my lab.”

Tony rolled his eyes and drained the last of his second bottle, leaving it next to the sink with the first one, then followed Bruce towards an elevator. Bruce was a terrible liar, but whatever, maybe Tony could find a pack of cigs somewhere. And he definitely wanted to see what a futuristic science lab looked like.

***

“Do we have any idea how this may have happened?” Steve asked the room at large, though the question was directed more towards Jarvis.

“There were no abnormal readings during the night,” Jarvis replied.

“Would your sensors pick up magic?” Natasha asked. Most of them hadn’t bothered to get changed out of their various sleep outfits, so she was wearing loose yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt that probably belonged to Clint once upon a time. Clint, on the other hand, was wearing boxers and a t-shirt that definitely belonged to Phil, judging by the Captain America shield on the front. Phil, paying more attention to his tablet, was in jeans and what looked like one of Clint’s flannel shirts. They had claimed the couch, Natasha at one end with her knees drawn up, Clint in the middle, and Phil on the other end, pressed shoulder to shoulder with Clint.

“My sensors are calibrated to detect magical signatures that we have encountered before,” Jarvis said, which basically meant _no_.

“He’s going to figure things out pretty quickly,” Sam said, nursing a cup of coffee. “Heaven help us if he finds the suits.”

“Colonel Rhodes will be here by noon,” Phil said, glancing up for the first time. “And I have informed Ms. Potts of the situation as well, though advised her to remain in Malibu for the moment.”

Steve nodded; Pepper and Rhodes knew Tony the best. Maybe he’d feel more comfortable with either of them. Though he hadn’t seemed too bad with Bruce. Steve didn’t want to think about what might happen if Bruce Hulked out. “Alright, so, what are we looking at for worst case scenario?”

“He really did travel through time and when we send him back we’ll end up in a future with hoverboards and _Jaws 15_ being released in 3D,” Clint replied. “Though the hoverboards wouldn’t be so bad, I guess, but I could probably just have Tony make one of those for me anyway. Let’s not talk about the fashion.”

“Do I even want to know?” Steve asked, because it was obvious Clint was making _some_ kind of pop culture reference that Steve hadn’t caught up on yet.

“ _Back to the Future_ , a movie made in the mid-80s, though it’s not until the second one when they end up thirty years into their future,” Sam explained. Steve’s headache increased. This was not what he needed, first thing in the morning.

“Oh, and the whole dystopian thing,” Clint added, off-hand. Natasha smacked his arm.

“Tony’s smart enough that we should be able to remind him not to create any causality-ending paradoxes,” Natasha said, though she sounded doubtful even to Steve.

“Do we really trust him not to decide, fuck it, I’m going to fix the future, when he gets back to his own time?” Clint asked. Natasha shrugged.

“Fine, okay, reality gets torn apart, I get it,” Steve said, rubbing at his temple. “That’s if this is time travel. What are our other options? De-aging?”

“There’s a precedent for that,” Phil said. “Usually by magical means. The spells tend to have a relatively short half-life, and Tony would return to normal within a short amount of time.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Steve asked. Everyone exchanged looks at that question, no one wanting to give the answer that seemed to be hanging in the air. Steve sighed, long and slow, and buried his face in his hands.

***

Bruce’s lab was less interesting than Tony had hoped for.

Sure, the computer was _amazing_ , and then Bruce had shown Tony the holographic interfaces, but other than that, it could have been them chem lab at MIT. There were three microscopes (looked like some sort of cell samples, nothing interesting at all), a centrifuge, an autoclave the size of a large television, and a setup of Bunsen burners and Erlenmeyer flasks that looked like something straight out of a bad movie about mad scientists.

“So what is this place anyway?” Tony asked, gesturing around to the building in general. “Some sort of fancy, hi-end boarding school?”

Bruce snorted softly. “More like a frat house,” he said, then gave Tony a self-deprecating smile. “Think of it as the unofficial clubhouse for an eclectic group of social outcasts.”

“Do we all live here?” He’d already gathered that the room he’d woken up in had belonged to him; he still had no idea who the woman he apparently shared it with was, though. He hoped she was hot.

“Most of the time. Sam’s got a house in DC that he and Steve stay at sometimes. You’ve got a few other places.”

“Of course I do,” Tony replied, spinning on the high stool next to Bruce’s bench. “So how do we all know each other? Or am I just expected to figure this all out for myself?”

“It’s a complicated story,” Bruce said. Tony rolled his eyes; he’d heard that from pretty much every adult ever, even though he’d been proving since the age of four that he could keep up with their conversations. But it just confirmed that Bruce wasn’t any more trustworthy than anyone else Tony ever interacted with.

“Right, of course. Tell me there are ray guns in the future,” he said, changing the subject. “And if there aren’t, why the hell haven’t I invented them yet?”

“I’m sure it’s on your list,” Bruce said, lips twitching into a smile. “Check my math? You’ve got a better grasp of multi-variable differential equations than I do.”

Tony made a soft humming noise that most people assumed was agreement or acknowledgment or some other bullshit, but he pulled the floating equation close and peered at the numbers. “Guess I haven’t managed to rework the laws of thermodynamics yet, either.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

“I apologize for the intrusion, Dr. Banner, but Captain Rogers requests your presence in the lounge,” a voice said from an overhead speaker. He supposed if this building was really as big as it seemed, it made sense for the butler to use an intercom system instead of running around trying to find people and announce their visitors.

“Thanks, tell him we’ll be up in a minute,” Bruce replied. He shuffled some displays around and then collapsed them into nothingness before standing from his chair. “Shall we?”

“Not like I’ve got anything better to do,” Tony replied, letting Bruce lead them towards the elevator. There were no buttons; Bruce simply told it to take them to the common level, and Tony felt the sudden upward acceleration. He wanted to peel the panel off the wall and figure out how the voice activation system worked, but he knew better than to touch things that weren’t his. He really wished the sweatpants he’d woken up in had pockets to shove his hands in, but he was stuck instead tucking them into his armpits and keeping his arms crossed tight over his chest.

The door opened and they stepped out into a room that had no internal walls. There was a 360 degree view of Manhattan through floor-to-ceiling windows, and in the center of the room was a sunken pit with couches and a glass coffee table. The room felt cold, and empty, even though Captain America was standing near the windows with someone Tony didn’t recognize.

At least not until the guy turned around, and then it felt like someone had punched Tony in the gut, because that was—

No. It couldn’t be. Tony might not have given half a rat’s ass about the military, but he knew how to read rank insignia, and that was a very recognizable silver eagle on the patch of that guy’s flight suit, and Rhodey—

Not-Rhodey was approaching him, and Tony knew it couldn’t be Rhodey, really, because Rhodey was still a cadet, still had two more years of ROTC left, Jesus, this guy was _old_ and he was frowning at Tony like he was one of their circuits problems and _fuck_.

“Hey, Tony,” Not-Rhodey said, and damn it all but that was Rhodey’s voice coming out of that guy, and Tony knew that look he was wearing now, it was the _you’ve been drinking too much too early in the morning, come get real food_ look, like Tony hadn’t been taking care of himself for the last ten years of his life. But then Rhodey smiled and tilted his head a little. “Well, at least you didn’t blow anything up this time.”

His mouth was too dry and there was a tight knot in his throat that wasn’t letting him swallow properly and definitely wasn’t letting words come out. Captain Chemistry Set looked upset, and fuck him, no really, just _fuck him_ , did anyone shove his best (only) friend into his face after waking up in the future to say _here, look at how much time you’ve missed!_

He refused to step back, refused to flee, because Starks did not show weakness, Starks built bombs and fucking decimated their enemies, and maybe Rhodey wasn’t his enemy, but this entire thing was fucked up six ways to Sunday. He hadn’t failed to notice the very well stocked bar in the corner. Ignoring Captain Dickhead and the guy who was probably Rhodey but Tony really didn’t want to think about that, he made his way across the room, grabbed a bottle of what had to be ridiculously expensive liquor—vodka, maybe, that looked like Cyrillic on the label—and didn’t bother with a glass, pulling the stopper out to take a long swig.

And thank fucking Jesus that neither man commented, because Tony wasn’t sure what might come out of his mouth if they pushed him any further right now. He closed his eyes and held the bottle close, relishing the warm burn (it was _really_ good vodka) and tried to center himself. When he finally felt slightly calmer, he turned back to the two men with his best Stark Smile in place, vodka held loose in one hand. “Looks like you passed linear algebra after all, honey bear.”

***

“That wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” Steve said, but the words were mostly muffled by his head buried in his hands. Natasha wasn’t feeling very charitable at the moment, and certainly did not feel particularly sorry for him..

“You, of all people, should have known better,” Natasha told him. His head tilted up with a questioning look, reminding Natasha that Steve was the youngest of their group, not yet thirty by his own timeline. She gentled her tone, just a little. “How would you have reacted if, a few hours after you woke up in the present, you were faced with someone from your past, seeing how much they had changed?”

Steve blanched. “It’s just...he seemed so blasé.”

“It’s Tony, Cap, when does he ever let people see what he’s actually feeling?”

“He does with us,” he argued, sounding almost petulant.

Natasha shook her head at him. “Right now, this Tony doesn’t know us, and has even less reason to trust us. He’s fifteen and just found himself thirty years in the future. That’s more than twice his lifetime.”

Steve’s shoulders hunched in. “I just wanted to give him someone he _could_ trust. When I first woke up...” She remained silent, letting him reach whatever conclusion was comfortable for him. He sighed. “Times Square was a bad enough shock, and I didn’t even spend much time in Manhattan, before.”

Natasha nodded. “Your heart was in the right place, Steve. And I’m sure once the initial shock wears off, Tony _will_ appreciate the colonel’s presence.”

“Has Bruce figured anything out yet?” Steve asked, changing the subject.

She shrugged her shoulders, letting him get away with the obvious move. “Not yet. He and Dr. Foster are on a video call, last I checked. They’re both leaning more towards magic than science, at this point.”

“What are the other options?” Steve asked.

“Possibly something to do with mutants, or Extremis. Pepper hasn’t been affected, but with everything else Tony gets up to, who knows how that might affect him,” Natasha replied.

Steve nodded in acknowledgment. “So now we wait.”

“Now we wait,” she confirmed.

***

Tony Stark may have only know Jim Rhodes for a handful of months by his own reckoning (two thirds of his life, by Rhodey’s), but he liked to think he was an expert at escape and evasion from overbearing Air Force wannabes.

Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. Rhodey wasn’t ever really a _wannabe_ , and now he actually was, so that metaphor kind of fell apart. But that’s fine, because even Rhodey hadn’t tried to take away the vodka ( _really_ good vodka), which was good, because Tony wasn’t sure he could handle this whole possible time travel thing without being well lubricated.

So he’d distracted Rhodey (too easy, the man was a lightweight even thirty years later) and made his escape from the den area Bruce had brought him to. There was a kitchen--not the same one he’d found earlier, so he guessed maybe he was on a different floor now--and a hallway beyond, with only four doors. Three of them were locked; the fourth swung open like something out of Star Trek, and Tony tried not to ogle for too long. The whole point of this was to hide, not to stand in the hallway until someone came along and found him.

Not that anyone would probably come looking anyway, and he was good at hiding when he wanted to be. So. Room!

It looked like some sort of hotel room, with a large king sized bed, a matching dresser and wardrobe, and a small kitchen area that had a half-sized fridge, a sink, a set of burners, and a toaster oven. Maybe this entire building was some sort of fancy lab-slash-hotel hybrid thing, but Tony didn’t really think so. This probably was some kind of guest room, which hopefully meant it wasn’t used all that often and no one would think to look for him here.

The far wall was floor-to-ceiling glass, tinted against the afternoon sun. But it was facing north, out over Central Park, which at least didn’t look like it had changed in the last thirty years. There was a desk along one wall, dark wood that matched the dresser and a leather chair that most of the professors at MIT probably would have sold their souls for. Or whatever was left of their souls after making academic tenure, Tony didn’t think any of them had much left; probably hadn’t started with much of one in the first place, but who was he to judge? Tony was pretty sure his dad had sold Tony’s soul before he’d even been born.

Where was he?

Oh, right, thirty years in the future, vodka, and an unused room in some fancy skyscraper that shouldn’t exist.

There was a space between the desk and the windows, not big enough for an adult, but Tony still hadn’t hit his final growth spurt and hadn’t had much to eat in the last....week, maybe two, that hadn’t consisted of alcohol, Cheetos, and those little mini hot dogs wrapped in dough, man those were good, he wondered if they still had them here in the future.

Asking would require interacting with those people again, so Tony just settled himself so he couldn’t be seen from the door and peered out over the city. If he just focused on the green of the park, he could almost pretend like his whole life hadn’t gone to hell.

The vodka was starting to get warm. It still tasted better than whatever shit he’d had back in Boston, where he didn’t much care about the taste and just wanted the comfortable numbness.

 _Fuck_. How had this become his life? There sure as hell wasn’t enough vodka in this bottle to deal with this right now. But maybe what he did have would be enough to knock him out for a few hours. Maybe even undo whatever this mess was.

He couldn’t stay in this room forever. Well, maybe he could, but he figured if they were going to unfuck this, he’d have to come out eventually, because how many other people could figure shit out like this? Dad, maybe, but...

But no one had even suggested getting in touch with his father, and Tony had never been accused of being stupid. Lazy, irresponsible, a general fuck up from start to finish, sure, but not stupid. So if no one was offering to call Dad, that meant Dad wasn’t around to call.

He’d have been super old by now anyway, yeah? And it wasn’t like Tony’d ever had a close relationship with his father.

But if there was anyone who could have surely straightened things out...

He took another long pull of the vodka, making his eyes burn. Here he was, teenaged genius, hiding and getting drunk off his ass instead of doing something useful with himself. Maybe it was better that Dad wasn’t around to remind Tony of how disappointing he was.

He squeezed his eyes shut; he hadn’t cried in years, not since that time he’d been five and spent half the day puking while Jarvis had wiped his forehead with a damp cloth and offered him weak tea to sip on. If Dad was dead, Jarvis definitely was too, despite what had been said earlier. Not his Jarvis.

Not his Rhodey, either, even if Rhodey did remember the secret password.

He hadn’t ever really thought it possible to feel more alone than he had when he’d first moved into the apartment in Boston. But at least then he could have called Jarvis or Obie, and he sure as hell didn’t want to ask about Obie now either, because he just didn’t think he could take being told that one more person he knew was gone.

The bottle of vodka, which had been three quarters full when he’d liberated it from the bar, was now down to the last quarter or so. He held the bottle up, eyeing it. Fuck it. He’d had more before and walked away just fine.

With one last pull, he finished the bottle.

***

“How is he, Jarvis? Really?” Pepper asked. She was still in Malibu, but the jet was standing by and Happy had a car ready for them. She wanted to go to New York, wanted to tell Tony everything would be okay, but he wouldn’t recognize her and she knew Tony well enough to know that he wasn’t going to let anyone get too close.

“He is currently consuming one of Agent Romanov’s bottles of vodka,” Jarvis informed her.

She sighed, rubbing at her eyes. Phil’s message had woken her an hour before her alarm that morning, and she hadn’t really been able to skip the meeting she’d had planned, not when Phil had reassured her that Tony was okay, apart from being a teenager.

And now drunk, apparently.

“What happened?”

“Colonel Rhodes arrived,” Jarvis said, precise as always. “Captain Rogers made the miscalculation of re-introducing them.”

She sighed again; Natasha’s vodka sounded fantastic right now, but someone had to try and keep a level head, and a teenaged Tony would be no better than an adult Tony, in that regard. “How’s Rhodey taking this?”

“With aplomb. He is distressed at causing Sir discomfort, but he will recover in time.”

“Do we have any answers yet?” she asked. It was a useless question, she knew Jarvis would have informed her immediately if they’d figured this out, if Tony had been turned back into an adult or returned from whatever time he had ended up in or whatever.

“Unfortunately, the doctors have not yet determined a cause, and therefore cannot hypothesize a way to reverse whatever has been done to Sir.”

“And you, Jarvis? How are you taking this?” Pepper asked, because whatever Tony and Jarvis might argue to the contrary, the AI was enough of a person to have feelings. Pepper had been there in those three months during Afghanistan; she knew the toll it had taken on Jarvis and the bots.

“It is an inconvenience that Sir is at a point in his life when he has not yet created me and would likely react with more suspicion than awe and curiosity.”

Which was Jarvis’s way of saying _it sucks he won’t talk to me_. Pepper knew the feeling. “We’ll figure this out, Jarvis,” she told him.

“Of course, Ma’am,” Jarvis said. “I have every faith in the abilities of Doctors Banner and Foster.”

“He’s still Tony,” Pepper said, but this time her voice was softer, and she didn’t bother trying to hide her hesitation from Jarvis.

“According to every parameter, yes,” Jarvis replied, which was as close as he could come to comforting her. “Perhaps...”

She raised an eyebrow. Jarvis so very rarely paused like that. “Go on,” she prompted.

“I believe the term used is _second chance_ ,” Jarvis said, delicate and clipped. “Perhaps this can be seen as a boon for Sir.”

The thought had occurred to Pepper, of course, but…But the selfish part of her didn’t want him to stay fifteen. For all its ups and downs and occasional supervillains, their relationship was everything Pepper had dreamed it could be. But this Tony, who hadn’t been tortured in Afghanistan, who hadn’t been betrayed by Obadiah, who didn’t feel the weight of responsibility of being a hero...he wasn’t the man that Pepper had fallen in love with and wanted to spend as much time as possible with. If they couldn’t reverse this, her Tony would be as good as dead.

“Perhaps,” Pepper finally replied.

***

“Someone should talk to him,” Steve said. They’d moved to the communal kitchen, the one that was technically Tony’s but they all gravitated towards. “Get him to eat something.”

“I’m not sure he’s interested in talking to any of us,” Clint said. “Rhodey said he went running off to one of the guest rooms.”

“At least we don’t need to worry about keeping tabs on him,” Steve said. This entire thing was making him feel old--older than he felt most days, when the weight of seventy missing years weighed down on him. Maybe he was the best one to talk to Tony, the one who could relate to him the most right now, but he’d already messed things up once today. “But do we really think it’s a good idea to let him drink like that?”

“Three quarters of a bottle of vodka isn’t that much for Tony, even at that age,” Colonel Rhodes said. “He spent more time drunk than sober, and when he wasn’t lost in the alcohol he was wasted off something else.”

Steve tried not to wince. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known these things about Tony, but Steve hadn’t been prepared for actually seeing Tony at fifteen, wide eyed and drinking straight from the bottle.

“Jarvis will keep an eye on him,” Rhodey continued. “What I wouldn’t have done for his help the first time Tony was fifteen...”

Steve pounded his fist down on the table, causing it to rattle and the others in the room to flinch back. “Damn it. Has someone talked to Reed Richards? Professor Xavier? Doctor Strange? Someone who might have some clue about what happened?”

“I have been in touch with all of them,” Phil said, the only one who hadn’t flinched and wasn’t busy staring at Steve for swearing. “Dr. Richards and Dr. Strange are both checking for any anomalies that may have caused this. Professor Xavier is currently unavailable. I have also put through a message to Asgard to see if Thor may have any insights. I suggest,” and his tone made it very clear that this was an order and not a suggestion, “that the rest of you go about your normal routines. Agent Barton, I believe you owe me paperwork.”

And that, too, was obviously a dismissal for them all. Steve sighed and headed for the gym.

***

Sam gave Tony a couple of hours to himself--making sure the others left him alone too--before deciding it was time to talk. Carrying a tray of food, he made his way for the room that Jarvis said Tony had holed up in.

Upon first entering the room, Sam thought it was empty, but Jarvis wouldn’t have misled him. And then Sam saw a foot, half hidden by the desk. He approached slowly; Tony was curled into the corner, head leaning against the glass wall, empty bottle of vodka loose in his hands. Sam took a step back so he wasn’t in direct line of sight, and cleared his throat loudly enough to hopefully wake Tony.

“Go ‘way,” he heard Tony mumble. Judging by the amount of alcohol he had consumed, Tony was still probably drunk, but at least he seemed vaguely coherent, if surly.

“I brought you some food. Not sure how you took your eggs, so I just threw in some cheese and bacon and onions,” Sam said, putting the tray of food on the floor near Tony’s feet. He sat down on the ground to face Tony. “My name’s Sam. We met briefly this morning.”

Tony was giving him a suspicious look, and hadn’t moved to touch the food. “What do you want?”

Sam shrugged. “I figured you’d want something to eat, since you haven’t eaten all day. And some water. There’s aspirin there too, for later.”

The teenager pushed himself out of the slump he’d been in, scrubbing one hand across his face while still clutching the empty bottle with his other, like it was some sort of security blanket. Sam tried not to think too closely about that. “They send you to find me?”

“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You’ve been in here for a few hours, by the way. Bruce and Jane are still going through data, and we’ve got a couple others coming to offer their help.” He nudged the tray a little closer to Tony.

He grabbed a slice of toast, picking at the crust. “I don’t like onions.”

“Sorry.”

Tony titled his head and narrowed his eyes, the way he’d looked at Sam’s wings a few weeks ago. “You live here?”

“Just moved in a couple weeks ago. I’ve been busy since then,” Sam replied.

That seemed to satisfy Tony, at least a little. Enough for him to take an actual bite of the toast. “But everyone else, they’ve lived here for a while? With older-me?”

“Bruce has been here the longest of any of us. About two years now. Steve had a room but wasn’t using it until recently. Same with Clint and Natasha--you haven’t met them yet. Thor comes and goes.”

Tony snorted softly. “Thor? Really? Someone’s parents have a hard-on for Norse mythology.”

Sam coughed on a laugh. “Not...exactly. More like his parents _are_ Norse mythology,” Sam said.

Tony’s eyes went wide. “You expect me to believe that there’s a guy hanging around in Midtown who believes he’s some.... Norse god? Sure, that’s a good one.”

“I haven’t met him yet, so I can’t say one way or another. But Steve and the others say it’s true, so I trust them,” Sam said.

“So Captain America hangs out with a Norse god and a super genius. And what are you, their trusty sidekick?” Tony had a sneer on his face, but even not having known the man for very long, Sam could see the defensiveness of the expression.

“I feel more like their babysitter, to be honest. But you forgot the expert marksman and the super spy. I’m just a guy that likes to fly.”

“Must get along with Rhodey then. He wants to--” Tony caught himself, and Sam watched him smile. “Guess he is a pilot these days, isn’t he.”

“Today was the first time I met him, actually, though I’ve heard a lot about him. I was just a lowly PJ,” Sam said. “Did my time and got out.”

“You really didn’t know I don’t like onions?” Tony asked.

Sam blinked. “No. Is there some reason you think I should have?”

Tony shrugged, taking the water. “Seems like everyone else around here knows everything about me. Or future-me or whoever the hell it is. Not surprising, I guess. Da--I was already on magazine covers, even a few years ago. Whatever. You know what I mean. So like, am I super famous now?”

Sam had to snort. “You’ve certainly got yourself a reputation. But like I said, I only just moved in. Somehow I got the feeling that you don’t tell reporters much about yourself. I can make you another omelet if you want.”

Tony looked at the plate. “You call that an omelet? It looks like someone already tried to digest it. Even if I did like onions, I wouldn’t eat that. I have standards, you know.”

He sounded so serious. Sam tried not to laugh. “Hey now, just because mine ended up a bit more like scrambled eggs with some other stuff tossed in doesn’t mean they taste any less good. And if you still don’t want eggs, we probably have pretty much everything else you can imagine, in the kitchen.”

“I only drink organic milk. And freshly squeezed orange juice. I’ll take a Bloody Mary, too. That counts as breakfast, right? We’re doing breakfast, even though it’s, what, five in the afternoon? Unless you’ve got, I don’t know, caviar in the kitchen. I haven’t had any good caviar in ages.”

“We can order pizza,” Sam offered, standing up to hold out a hand towards Tony.

Tony stared at it for several long seconds, looking young and vulnerable again. “What happens if they can’t figure this out?”

Sam had to swallow as he dropped back down to be on eye level with Tony. “Part of that’s up to you.”

“Don’t suppose it would make any sense just to go back to school,” Tony said, looking down at his lap. “I guess I could find someplace else to go. My parents are dead, so the mansion’s empty, yeah?”

He said it in such a matter of fact way that it caught Sam off guard. “Your parents?”

Tony scowled. “Not stupid. You’d have asked Dad for help if you could have. Maybe I can just ask Obie...”

“Agent Barton is cooking pasta on the communal level,” Jarvis said, interrupting. He sounded--almost angry, if a computer code could get angry. Tony glanced up but didn’t seem startled or surprised; had he already figured out the AI too?

“We can go down and help,” Sam offered. “Or we can just get pizza and hide in here some more. Doesn’t matter to me, but Clint’s pasta’s good. Garlic bread too, I’m sure. And you can meet everyone else.”

“Why bother?” Tony asked, barely audible. “Not like any of them care.”

“They won’t care if you’re forty or fifteen, Tony. And if Bruce and the others can’t find a way to undo this, we’ll all still want you around.”

“Sure. Teen geniuses are handy, just as long as we keep our mouths shut and stay out of the way, right?” There was a depth of bitterness there that Sam hadn’t heard before. He was feeling at a loss, not knowing very much about the details of Tony’s past or family history other than what had been splayed all over the news for most of Sam’s life.

“I think you’d start worrying the others if you suddenly stopped talking.” He sighed, rubbing a hand across his head. “Look, no one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. You want to stay in here, that’s fine; you want to come down and throw peas across the table at Clint, my only warning is that he’s an expert marksman, and Natasha will take his side, and that woman is scary with edible projectiles. But, if my guess is correct, you start a vegetable assault, and I know Rhodey will take your side, and the Cap will probably fall in too, and I go where the Cap goes. So really, it might almost be an even match, if Phil decides to play Switzerland.”

That at least got Tony looking vaguely interested. “Captain America has food fights.”

Sam shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen yet, but we can probably change that. What do you say?”

Tony hesitated, but pushed himself up after another moment. “Do you have any rubber bands?”

***

Tony hovered at the entryway to the kitchen. He could hear voices--loud, rambunctious, people talking over each other and at each other and the kind of laughter he only heard when he was on the outskirts, like this. He wasn’t _afraid,_ Starks weren’t afraid of things, but he knew that if he went through that door, the laughter would stop. They’d probably all stare at him, like he was even more of a sideshow freak than usual.

“Hey, Stark, get in here and give me a hand,” someone called.

Tony hesitated only a moment, putting on his best camera grin, before going into the kitchen. He recognized Rhodey (for some fucked up definition of recognized, considering his friend was thirty years older than he’d been yesterday) and Sam had gone ahead, and Captain America who was busy setting a table. He didn’t recognize the woman with the long red hair--Natasha, probably, and Tony couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she was the woman who shared his room. He didn’t think so, not really, because he just couldn’t see this woman in one of those suits. There were two other men, one at the stove wearing a pink frilly apron, and the other carefully dicing tomatoes into a salad bowl. Clint and Phil, but which was which was anyone’s guess.

“Taste this,” the one in the apron said, holding a spoon of sauce out towards Tony. No one else was paying him any extra attention, and the chatter was still going on around him. Natasha was saying something to Captain America about some television show that Tony didn’t recognize.

“Um,” was Tony’s intelligent response.

“I need to know if it needs more vodka or cream,” the man said, starting to sound impatient.

“I’ve already told you, it needs more garlic,” salad-man said.

“You think everything needs more garlic, Jesus, we’re not fighting vampires, do I look like a cheerleader to you? Didn’t think so,” apron-man said. “Stark, vodka or cream?” He was still holding the spoon towards Tony with an expectant look on his face. The others were starting to glance towards them now. He was starting to feel trapped.

“If you expect me to slurp pasta sauce off of that spoon for you to stick it back into the pot, you’ve got another think coming,” Tony said, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s absolutely disgusting, and what do I look like, a sous chef?”

The others stopped talking. Tony refused to look towards Rhodey, refused to let them all see that they’d thrown him completely off his footing, and fuck this, the entire thing was a bad idea from start to finish.

“Why don’t you come help me choose a wine to go with dinner,” Rhodey finally said, stepping into Tony’s line of sight. Which, hey, suggesting Tony should head towards alcohol was not something Rhodey generally did, he was usually the one trying to move Tony in the opposite direction, which only helped to cement this Bizarro world Tony had found himself in. But Rhodey was giving him that _I can wait all day, I’m in the military_ look, so Tony shrugged and followed him towards a wine cooler.

Rhodey didn’t try to talk to him, thank God for that, just let Tony peruse the bottles of wine. Someone had damn good taste, and the wines were helpfully arranged by region and vintage. He found a Chianti with a label he recognized, even if it was bottled after his time, and handed it to Rhodey. “You’ll want to let that breathe for a few minutes,” Tony directed.

“Tony--”

Tony shook his head sharply. “Don’t. Just... don’t. Go back to your dinner. I’m not really hungry.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” Rhodey said. “Damn it, Tony, they were only trying to be nice to you.”

“Well maybe I don’t want them to be nice to me!” Tony snapped back. “Maybe I don’t want their pity and their fake interest and who the hell actually cares what I think of the vodka sauce, seriously? Just let me go down to the lab and help Bruce figure out what the hell happened and then everything can go back to the way it’s supposed to be and no one has to pretend to like me if they don’t want to.”

“I’m not even going to get started with you right now on how fucked up that is on so many levels, but trust me when I say that those people out there? They’re your friends, Tony, and they don’t have to pretend to like you.”

“Trust you?” Tony demanded. “ _Trust_ you? Hell, I barely even know you! Eight months you’ve known me and you expect me to trust you? And those people, whoever the hell they are, they’re not my friends. Captain America was my _dad’s_ friend, so I’m sure whatever agreement we have for sharing a living space is based on some ancient favor owed. Just don’t, Rhodey.”

“Thirty years,” Rhodey said, ignoring Tony’s rant. “I’ve known you for thirty years, Tony, even if right now you only remember the first eight months. You didn’t drive me away after the first year, and you didn’t drive me away after the last thirty. But those people out there, and me, we like you. Not because you’re a genius or because you invent things, but because you’re a good person and you’re our friend.”

Tony snorted, turning to stare at the rack of cabernets. “I don’t have friends.”

He heard Rhodey inhale to respond, but it was cut off. “I’m sorry, Colonel Rhodes,” Captain America said, hovering in the doorway of the wine cooler. “We just got a report of Doom bots and we could really use the extra aerial support.”

Rhodey didn’t reply right away, but Tony remained silent. Finally Rhodey sighed. “Sure thing, Cap, let me just suit up.”

“I’m really sorry about this, Tony,” Captain America said. “Phil will be staying here, and Bruce is still down in his lab. The rest of us will be back as soon as possible.”

Tony nodded, though he didn’t have a clue what Captain America was talking about. It must have been enough, though, because Tony found himself alone once more.

***

By the time Stark came back into the kitchen, the Avengers had arrived at the mess downtown. Normally, Phil would have gone with the team and remained in the Quinjet, but no one felt comfortable leaving Tony alone in the tower when they still didn’t have an explanation as to what had happened to him. With Stark tech, Phil could keep just as good an eye on things from the tower, anyway.

“Help yourself to the food,” Phil said, keeping his tone nonchalant as he gestured towards the stove. “The others won’t mind.”

Stark didn’t approach the food, instead wandering closer to Phil to peer at the holographic interface that was displaying the team’s actions. “What’s that?”

“Bit of a problem downtown, nothing the team hasn’t handled before,” Phil told him.

“Team?”

Phil shrugged. “The Avengers. Some people call them superheroes.”

“And everyone who lives here is one of these Avengers people?” Tony asked. Steve had been against telling Tony too much about the future, but Phil was of the opinion that Tony would figure it out eventually and it would create less problems if they controlled what he was being told.

“Yes.”

Phil waited for the question he knew was coming next. Tony last thirty whole seconds, watching the action on the screen, before asking. “And what’s my role in these things? I’m not exactly a superhero.”

Phil only glanced at him out of the corner of his vision. “You like to refer to yourself as the team mechanic,” he said, careful and neutral.

His shoulders slumped, just a little. “Oh. Right. Figures.”

Making sure everything was well in hand in the fight (and he had his comm on, if they needed him), Phil tore his attention away from the screen to look at the teen. “You’ll find, Stark, that one thing that probably hasn’t changed in the next thirty years of your life is your fascinating penchant for understating your involvement in anything you deem uncharacteristically charitable towards others.”

He watched Tony’s cheeks flush pink. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You call yourself the team mechanic because, defying all logic, in this one thing, you have managed to show modesty,” Phil said.

Tony’s mouth opened then snapped shut again. He crossed his arms defensively. “No one’s ever accused me of modesty, you know.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that fact,” Phil replied. “I admit, it doesn’t suit you well, though I will deny until your dying day that I ever said such a thing. I don’t presume to know why, but you have an infinite ability to undersell or ignore anything good about yourself or the things you do.”

Tony turned a shade of red that would have matched his Iron Man suit. Phil had wanted to say these things to Tony since--well, pretty much since that mess with Obadiah Stane--but the adult Tony would have found a way to deflect around this entire conversation. Phil was not above using Tony’s lack of practice at manipulating situations for this one thing.

Besides, with the way Tony’s day had been going, he probably needed a reminder that he had the capacity to be a good person. It was unfortunate that the task fell to Phil, who was not precisely a sentimental man.

“Widow’s down,” Phil heard Clint say across the comms. “Cap, we’re going to need more back up than this.”

“Coulson?” Steve called through the line. Phil had already pulled his phone out.

“I’ll send Banner your coordinates,” Phil replied.

“Thanks,” was the terse response, before Steve turned his attention back to the fight.

Phil sent the text to Bruce and focused on the screen once more, letting Tony brood on what Phil had said.

***

So apparently, not only was grown-up Tony living with Captain America, but he was also living with a whole team of superheroes. Which was fucking cool, but what the hell was this about him being the _mechanic_? The Phil guy hadn’t seemed like he was trying to insult Tony, but for fuck’s sake, Rhodey was out there in a badass _flying suit of armor_ , and Tony was supposed to sit back and accept the fact that he just did, what, maintenance work?

Sure, he didn’t have any super powers (that he knew of), but neither had Steve Rogers before Dad got hold of him. And it wasn’t like Rhodey did either, or Sam (Jesus _fuck_ those wings were sexy), so why the hell should they be out there having all the fun?

The only logical conclusion was that Tony had one of those suits too. He _had_ to, otherwise why would Rhodey have one in the first place? Thirty years into the future or not, but that sure as hell didn’t look like anything that might be available on the retail market, even to any of the most optimistic futurists.

So. Tony’s flying armor. It had to be around here somewhere. He just had to find it.

Phil was distracted by the video screen—there was a giant green thing smashing robots out of the sky now, which yes, Tony wanted to stay and watch, but there was a suit of armor that needed finding, and that right now was sure as hell more important than something that was probably getting recorded for posterity and he could totally watch later at his leisure. With popcorn. And a flying suit.

He waited until Phil was snapping something to someone named Hawkeye (codenames, cool; he wondered what his was) before vacating the kitchen. Tony liked for people to forget that he could do shit like that, since usually he was all loud noises and grand gestures and keeping attention on him (he wasn’t narcissistic, whatever that fuckwit TA thought, just because Tony’d started teaching the lesson himself— _correctly_ , mind you—and the prick had gotten his panties all up in a twist), but his father was a big proponent of the “seen and not heard” variety of child-rearing. So Tony was expected to keep his mouth shut unless he was being asked direct questions, which was also probably why he took advantage of talking nonstop while at school.

Armor. Right.

He went for the stairwell, since it was the better option for randomly roaming through a building he had no idea how many floors it actually had (they were currently on floor 72, but there could be 30 more stories above him and he’d never be able to tell from the interior). He could go up, but up was a pain in the ass, and really, no one ever accused Tony of having a sense of humor that was anything better than juvenile. So down it was, to floor 69.

And never let it be said that Tony wasn’t consistent, because shit, he’d hit the jackpot on the first roll and it was kind of nice to know that even if Tony did grow up to be some sort of do-gooder, he at least had managed to keep that sense of humor.


End file.
